~A/N> So, here's chapter 8. It's mainly a filler chapter, but it does have one major revelation in it
that will come into play in later chapters. Thanks for all the great reviews on the last chapter, and if you listen to
Harmony Podcast, the new one should be up in an hour or so :)
When they finally portkeyed to the front of The Leaky Cauldron, they were running short on time. Firenze had set up a
meeting with the Headmistress at ten-thirty, and it was now ten thirty-five. Praying that she wasn't running late
for any reason, Harry ushered an emotionally numb Hermione into the tavern and steered her toward the fireplace. He
sent her through first, making sure that she said the right thing in the current state she seemed to be in, and
followed immediately after. As he tumbled into the Headmistresses office, he was greatly relieved to see Hermione
standing there, brushing the soot off her robes in the empty room.
Scourgifying them both once again, Harry covered them with the cloak and gently took her hand in his, guiding her out of the office and down the stairs. Deciding that she was in no condition to be left alone, he walked toward the Head Boy and Girl dorm. As they walked into the common room he shared with Susan, they were unfortunatley greeted by the sight of Susan and her boyfriend snogging quite heavily on the sofa. When Susan looked up suddenly, Harry could see annoyance in her eyes and said, "We'll just go up to my room and leave you to it."
She went back to what she was doing without a word as Harry and Hermione climbed the stairs to his room. Once Hermione was inside, he cast a silencing spell on the common room and closed the door, causing Hermione to raise her eyebrows at him. "They, er...get a little loud sometimes."
"Oh," she replied quietly. "Then why don't they just go to her room?"
"I really have no idea," he answered. "I've learned with Susan that the less questions asked, the better we get along."
"I see," Hermione said, walking over to the side of Harry's bed, sitting down. She sat there, just staring down at her hands, and Harry looked at her for a moment before walking over to sit next to her.
Unsure of what to do or say, he sat there quietly, fidgeting while he thought. When Hermione reached out to still his hands, he looked up to find her looking straight at him. "Thank you," she said, her voice breaking. She took a moment to clear her throat and said, "You gave me something today that I will remember for the rest of my life, and I don't know of anyone else that would have done that for me."
"Well, I can't take all the credit," he said, slightly embarrassed. "Remus and Firenze helped out quite a bit as well; Remus arranged for McGonagall to be out of the office both times we used the floo and Firenze gave me the protection potion and allowed himself to be the second reason McGonagall was out of her office."
"I'll have to remember to thank them as well the next time I see them," she replied. "I still can't believe I saw my parents today, let alone had an entire conversation with them."
"You deserved to be able to say good-bye," he replied. "Maybe if I had defeated Voldemort by now, you would still have your family." Suddenly, the snitch that Harry kept on his bedside table went flying across the room. His seeker reflexes kicking in, his hand quickly reached out and snatched it out of the air. Looking at Hermione with the fluttering gold ball in his hand he said, "You have got to learn to control your anger when it comes to V...you-know-who. If what you said in the cemetary is true, you'll be fighting alongside me in the final battle, and he will most certainly be there."
"I can't wait to come face-to-face with that evil excuse of a wizard," she practically snarled, causing Harry's eyes to widen a bit at the anger in her voice. "And that's not the only reason I lost control. You're only seventeen Harry, it's unfair that everyone, including yourself, believes that you should have defeated him by now. What are they thinking? You're a bloody teenager! Just because you were able to somehow survive when you were just one year old doesn't mean you can just face him at any time and defeat him once and for all. You should be able to just be a normal teenager and not have anything to worry about except when you'll get your next snog. At least my life was normal for eighteen years...it's just not fair!"
"I try to live my life as normally as I can," he replied, touched at her concern for him. "I mean, I'm captain of the Quidditch team, I do wonder when I'll get my next proper snog, and all the other perverted things other wizards my age think about. I just have the added burden of an evil Dark Lord trying to kill me so that he can become immortal and rule the world."
Hermione looked at him for a moment and asked, "What's Quidditch?"
Of all the things he thought she would say or ask next, that question was the furthest from it. Leading her over to the window, he pointed out at the pitch where two sets of three rings stood proudly very high in the sky. "That's the Quidditch pitch over there. It's a sport played in the wizarding world," he explained. "There's a quaffle, which is used by Chasers to score points, a bludger and bludger bat which are used by Beaters to stop any points from being scored or stopping the Seeker, and the Snitch, which is what the Seeker has to catch to finish the match. Catching it is worth one hundred fifty points, and which team wins depends on how many goals have been scored before it's caught."
She noticed how his eyes lit up while he talked about the sport and she loved to see that there was at least one thing that brought absolute joy to his life. "So then this little gold ball...?" she asked, pointing toward the ball he held in his hand.
"Is the Snitch, and I am a Seeker," he replied, smiling. "I started on the team my first year...youngest seeker in a century."
"Well, that clears up some of what I read in that book about you," she said with a very slight smile. "So you must ride a broom to play then, right?"
"Yeah," he replied, walking over to where his Firebolt was propped up in one corner of his room and brought it over to where she still stood by the window. "It was a gift from my Godfather, Sirius Black."
"I've never flown on anything but an airplane; it was enclosed and I didn't like it much. I don't think I'd like to ride on a broom much either," she said, studying the broom in his hands.
"You are going to come watch our first Quidditch match next Saturday though, right?" he asked, trying not to think on why he really wanted her to say yes.
"I didn't really know about it, but I guess I'll come watch you play," she replied, and he smiled at her.
"Brilliant," he said, replacing his broom to it's original place. "It's against Slytherin, our rivals, and I think you'll enjoy it."
"We'll see," she replied, getting quiet again.
When he turned around, Harry found her staring out the window, at the sky. He could see that her eyes had filled with tears again and he hated that she was so sad. Walking up next to her he faced her and held his arms out, and she walked into them instantly, accepting his hug. Harry had never been one to give hugs, but somehow at that moment, he just knew it was the right thing to do. As he held her tightly to him, he marvelled at how well she fit against him and how protective he still felt of her. He didn't know where that protectiveness came from, maybe it had something to do with the Soul Guardian thing and their ties through it, but he realized that he would rather die than to ever let anything happen to her.
Unbeknownst to him, she was having almost the exact same thoughts. It felt so good to have his arms wrapped tightly around her; it made her feel as if nothing could ever hurt her again, as long as he was around. But that was wrong, wasn't it? She was supposed to be the one protecting him, not the other way around. Coming out of her Harry-induced haze, she pulled back a little and looked up at him. "Thank you, I needed that," she said.
"No problem," he replied, trying to act as if it were nothing.
As she looked up at him, she studied his lightning bolt shaped scar for the first time and slowly raised her finger up to touch it. With her eyes flickering to his once to see if he would stop her or not, she gently traced the slightly raised skin with the index finger of her right hand. Harry's eyes closed slowly at the feelings her heavenly touch sent through him, and when he opened them again he noticed something he'd not noticed before. Taking hold of her right wrist, he turned it so that her hand was palm up and asked, "What is that mark on your wrist?"
"What mark?" she asked, confused as she looked to where Harry was looking. She gasped as she saw what looked to be a crescent moon shaped mark on her inner wrist, near the middle, the skin raised up like it was on his scar. "I've never noticed that before," she replied, staring at it. Suddenly her mother's words rang in her ears, "When the moon and lightening appear at the same time, the earth shall cease to spin and the heavens will open with love." Pulling her wrist from his grasp, Hermione made her way to the door of his room and walked out, not caring what she would see the couple on the sofa doing.
"Hermione, what...?" Harry asked.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow Harry," she interrupted, not wanting to answer him just then. She needed to go to her room and write what her mother had told her in the Notebook, especially after what had just happened, so that she and Firenze could discuss it the next day during her lesson.
~*~
The following week found Harry in a very foul mood since Hermione seemed to be going out of her way not to spend time with him. Sure, she would smile and wave at him once in a while, but that was it. Harry found himself wanting to be alone with her so that he could talk to her, but everytime he saw her she was either in the common room surrounded by students or in the Great Hall. It really didn't help his mood any that Seamus kept paying extra attention to her, and by the way Lavender kept hatefully glaring at Hermione, she didn't like Hermione getting all his attention either. Needless to say, thanks to his demeanor, quidditch practices that week weren't much fun. Ron was the only one that understood his moodiness since Harry had confided in him everything that had happened the past Sunday, but it was even starting to get to him.
"Why don't you just pull her aside and talk to her?" he finally asked, running after his friend as he stalked off of the field Friday evening.
As his team walked by him grumbling, "prat" and "hard arse", Harry replied, "And what should I say to her? 'Hi Hermione, how are you? I was just wondering why you ran out of my room last Sunday the way you did and why you're ignoring me now?' I'd sound like a needy git who can't get along without her."
"Better to be a git than an arse like you've been all week," Ron replied, and then walked away from him to let him stew on it.
At the same time, Hermione was having a lesson with Remus in one of the classrooms on the first floor. Firenze was there because they were trying to combine the magical aspect of her powers with the Soul Guardian gifts she possessed, but thanks to her lack of focus it wasn't going well at all. So far she had given poor Remus a headache by trying to use her empath powers and she had levitated Firenze right off the ground and then dropped him, hard, onto his bottom. On top of that, she had singed off her eyebrows and somehow placed Firenze's tail onto Remus's backside, which was more embarrassing than she ever thought possible. Sighing, she asked, "Maybe we should just quit for the night?"
Making sure that he had placed Firenze's tail back to the exact spot it was supposed to be, he looked at her and said, "As tempted as I am to agree, I think we should work a little longer. Obviously there's something going on that is affecting your magic more than usual. And from the mistakes you've made I'd dare say there's something emotional going on as well. Why don't we work on some simple spells, like Stupefy?"
Taking a deep breath she said, "Okay." It helped knowing that Remus could shield himself and Firenze if anything happened to go wrong again. She felt horrible as she watched Firenze slowly edge to the far side of the room as she pointed her wand at Remus and said, "Stupefy!"
Remus immediately put up a shield around himself, seeing that it was a well aimed spell this time, but unfortunately at just that moment Harry had opened the door and walked into the room. Before he realized what was happening, the deflected red jet of light from the spell struck him right in the chest and knocked him back out into the hallway. Hermione winced as she watched him bounce on his bum a couple of times and then come to rest against the wall behind him. She immediately went running toward him, putting her wand away before she could inflict anymore damage, and knelt down next to him. "Oh Harry, are you alright? I am so sorry!" she exclaimed, gently placing her hand on his arm. As Firenze and Remus watched, a blue light shone from underneath the hand she had on Harry's arm and Harry stared at it wide-eyed, as did Remus and Hermione. Quickly pulling it away, she looked down at her hand and then up at Firenze. "Was that...?"
"It seems you do have the ability to heal others," Firenze stated.
"How do you feel Harry?" Remus asked.
"My arse doesn't hurt so much anymore," Harry replied with his usual easy smile. "Guess I should have knocked first, 'eh?"
"I'm sorry," Hermione said again, close to tears by this point. She was exhausted from lack of sleep and all the lessons she'd been having, and all the mishaps in this current lesson had just pushed her over the edge. "My magic has gone all wonky and I just...I need a break." Looking at Remus she asked, "Can we please be finished for the evening?"
"Absolutely," Remus answered while Firenze nodded in agreement next to him. "Harry, can you make sure she gets back to Gryffindor Tower okay? She's had a tough time of it tonight."
"Sure," Harry replied, glad to have an excuse to be alone with her finally. He watched as she went back into the room to gather her things together, without a fight, and walking up to Remus asked quietly, "Is she going to be okay?"
"Worried, are you?" Remus replied, that damn Marauder smile on his face that said he knew exactly why Harry was asking, even if Harry didn't.
"She's been a bit...distant since Sunday," Harry answered lamely, not wanting to give too much away.
While the two of them watched her as she spoke with Firenze, Remus said, "There is something off about her. Tonight has been one mistake after another. I actually had Firenze's tail on my own backside for a bit." Harry laughed out loud as he pictured Remus with Firenze's tail, and soon Remus had joined him. "I can laugh about it now, but there is something going on with her that she's not sharing with Firenze or I. Maybe she'll talk to you?"
"I doubt it. She walked out on me suddenly Sunday when I noticed a scar on her inner right wrist," Harry replied. "She got this thoughtful look on her face and she just walked out of my room, saying she'd talk to me the next day."
"A scar?" Remus asked, sounding very interested. "What did it look like?"
"From what I saw of it, it looked like a crescent moon to me," Harry explained. "The skin was raised up, like on my scar, but her's had a barely noticeable pink coloring to it."
"And after you saw the scar, what happened?"
"She said she had never noticed it before and got this really faraway look on her face.She was really quiet for a few moments, yanked her arm free and practically ran out of my room," Harry replied.
"She just left your room without another word?" Remus asked, staring at him with one eyebrow raised. "Wait...why were you in your room in the first place?"
"We had gone there after the funeral to talk, that's all. I didn't think she should be alone after all that had happened, and I knew that the Gryffindor common room would be full of students since it was Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, we couldn't use the Head's common room because Susan and Jason were going at it on the sofa again," Harry answered, sounding frustrated.
"You know, when your mum and dad used to spend time in the Head's common room, they used to have it so that the portrait wouldn't let the Head Boy in when they were....well, you know," Remus said, realizing he may have said too much.
"I really didn't need to know that," Harry said. When Remus chuckled he said, "It's not funny. I'm tired of walking in to find them going at it on the damn sofa when she could just as easily go into her room. I swear she does it just to get me angry."
"Hell hath no fury, Harry," Remus said, smiling.
"It was two years ago that we dated, if you could even call it that," Harry replied, sounding exasperated. "It was one lousy trip to Hogsmeade together."
"It only takes one time," Remus said.. "One thing you'd be smart to remember Harry - a woman might forgive, but she will never, ever forget...or let you forget about it either for that matter."
"Great," Harry mumbled as he noticed Hermione making her way toward them. "In that case, I can't wait to see what Ginny has in store for me."